Inside the BBC Trump speech furore that prompted dramatic resignations of bosses
The BBC is under huge pressure following Tim Davie’s resignation as anger continues over his editing of a Donald Trump speech into a documentary.
The broadcaster’s chief executive resigned along with news chief executive Deborah Turness on Sunday following repeated rows over claims of impartiality.
Latest controversy involved BBC Panorama section called Trump: Second Chance?Critics said the president was misleading in the way he organized his speech on January 6, 2021.
The US president himself weighed in on the resignations, saying that the documentary, which was released a week before last year’s US presidential election, was an attempt to “step on the scales of the presidential election”.
And he gave the BBC an ultimatum: apologize and compensate him “appropriately” by Friday or face legal action for $1bn (£760m) in damages.
Questions have been raised about how effectively the BBC has dealt with accusations of institutional bias because it neither apologized nor defended itself until Monday.
A clip from the program combines clips from parts of the US president’s speech on January 6, 2021, showing him telling his supporters that he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell.”
In his original speech, Mr. Trump said: “We will march on the Capitol and support our brave senators, congressmen and women.”
But the edit superimposed the first part of the speech with another part from 50 minutes later, showing him saying: “We’re going to march towards the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we’re fighting. We’re fighting like hell.”
But it would be more than a year before the regulation put enough pressure on the BBC to warrant resignation.
In the summer, a memo from Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, raised concerns about the way the clips were edited.
This memo was leaked by a whistleblower last week. Daily Telegraphposted quotes including: “Editing the clip this way was completely misleading. Panorama published. His failure to publicly encourage his supporters to go to Capitol Hill and fight was one of the reasons why federal charges of incitement of insurrection were not found.
The report sparked criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, including from the president’s son himself.
Donald Trump Jr posted on
Mr Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt also criticized the BBC. Telegram: “This deliberately dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further proof that this is completely, 100 per cent fake news and should no longer be worth the time of the UK’s great public on their television screens.”
Many people questioned the BBC’s response to the leaked memo, saying the company failed to “properly defend itself” or apologize for the criticism.
Katie Razzall, the BBC’s culture and media editor, said the broadcaster had a “ready to go” statement and accepted it should have made it clear that additions had been made to the speech, but the board instead decided to send a letter to parliament’s culture, media and sport committee.
It was also reported that Ms Turness was “torn apart” at a board meeting last week. Telegram reports.
The mounting pressure culminated in both Mr Davie and Ms Turness announcing their resignations on Sunday. In a statement to staff, Mr Davie said his resignation was “entirely” his own decision, adding: “Like all public organisations, the BBC is not perfect and we must always be open, transparent and accountable.”
Ms Turness said there had been discussions on the matter Panorama The editor “has reached a stage where it is damaging to the BBC, an institution I love” but insisted there was “no institutional bias” at the BBC and stood behind his team’s journalism.
Mr Trump reacted to the resignations, writing on Truth Social: “The TOP people at the BBC are all resigning/fired, including TIM DAVIE and THE BOSS, because they were caught ‘altering’ my very good (EXCELLENT!) speech on January 6th.”
Times It quotes BBC sources describing the departures as the result of “thousands of deaths by cuts”, following other neutrality debates on both sides of the political spectrum in Gaza coverage and Glastonbury coverage.
former editor Sun The newspaper described the resignations as a “coup” and an “inside job”.
David Yelland told BBC Radio 4 Today program: “There were people within the BBC, very close to the board, on the board who systematically undermined Tim Davie and his senior team over a long period of time. [time] and this has been going on for a long time. “What happened yesterday did not happen alone.”
A former Downing Street communications chief claimed the broadcaster had not defended itself properly, saying: “We live in a fast-moving digital world where there are a lot of people who want to attack the BBC and what we are seeing is that a vacuum has really been created.
“It has been clear for days that the BBC must step in, explain, apologize and move on.
“And we’ve seen BBC management say: ‘We’ll contact you on Monday; we’ll leave this for days. We’ll let the president of the United States attack the institution and not defend it properly.'”
BBC chief Samir Shah apologized for the “error of judgement”. But he said it was simply not true that Mr Prescott had uncovered issues the BBC had tried to “bury”.
The search for the next two candidates for senior positions in the British media will now begin and they will be appointed by the BBC board, ensuring the corporation delivers on its mission and public purposes.
